Is Google CEO's "Tiny Bubble Car" Yahoo CEO's "Little Bubble Car"? 190
theodp (442580) writes "Back in 2011, then-Google VP and now-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer brainstormed with BMW to sketch out an idea she had for self-driving 'little bubbles' that could ease office commutes. Here's Mayer's pitch from a BMW film short: 'All I really need is a little bubble that drives itself and when it runs into something, it doesn't hurt that much...and...you know, like it doesn't actually take up that much fuel because it's so lightweight and it's good for the environment for that reason.' So, with Google's newly-built, steering wheel-less self-driving car being described as a 'tiny bubble-car', one wonders if Google CEO Larry Page's "Tiny Bubble Car" has its roots in Mayer's 'Little Bubble Car,' especially considering the striking similarity of Mayer's concept car sketch and Google's built vehicle." Seems to me there's been plenty of concept art (as well as actual tiny bubble-like cars, even if they generallly have had steering wheels) for car designers to draw on.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
how about this, or is this 1942 car too futuristic? http://www.inautonews.com/six-... [inautonews.com]
Re:what's wrong with public transportation? (Score:3, Informative)
Google and others tried a similar thing with buses.
The Locals howled and picketed.
The City Government pontificated and demanded money for using publicly funded (through tax dollars) bus stops.
Google, et al, did this to provide bus transportation in the Bay Area for their employees because the infrastructure does exist to deliver their employees from their homes in the suburbs to the urban office.
You really should try to keep up with the news.
Re:what's wrong with public transportation? (Score:4, Informative)
no, California can't do that any more, massive amounts of bonds already issued (tens of billions of dollars worth) haven't been bought yet as investors are wise to California's plight
Re:CEO in a Bubble (Score:4, Informative)
... The other bubble car - Mercedes Smart is a failure in every sense of the word.
For a failure it is doing remarkably well. Here in Europe it has now been for sale for more than a decade, and there are no signs that its market is collapsing. It's true that not everyone is driving it, but if that is the benchmark, nowadays all cars are failures.
And the Google bubble car will be as popular as Segway.
The Segway also doesn't look like it will go away in the near future, it has found a few niches (e.g. getting around fast in large buildings such as airports and shopping malls, and guided tours for tourists).
Also, Google's bubble car is just an experimental platform for now.
Re: what's wrong with public transportation? (Score:5, Informative)
Please give me some sort of source to your claim.
According to this page [wikipedia.org] the average number of bus passengers in the UK is 9, and buses get about 6 MPG. So that is 54 passenger-miles per gallon, which is about as good as one person in an electric car, or two people in a gasoline powered car. But even that overstates the case for buses, since they drive a fixed non-optimal route, where a car goes directly to the passenger's destination, so the "miles" are not equivalent.
Re:what's wrong with public transportation? (Score:4, Informative)
are you kidding, California is nearly bankrupt.
No, it isn't [bizjournals.com].